Danette Johnson (right) found her niche in the CUTEP Program at MATC and is on her way to becoming a high school English teacher.

Study in Determination
Teacher Trainee Beats Odds

She loved being a medical assistant. Then life threw a nasty curve at Danette Johnson. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Johnson was told she no longer was capable of doing her job. Although she carried on gamely for two more years, she eventually had to quit and go on disability pay.

Johnson could not be held down for long, however. She embarked on a new career as a high school English teacher through the Cooperative Urban Teacher Education Program at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

“I didn’t have a choice really,” she says. Part of it was her mother’s example. “My mom was very determined and has always worked hard. I never saw her sitting at home watching soap operas. Just like her, I wanted to be a good model for my kids. I couldn’t tell my kids that they had to go to school and do well, while I was sitting around doing nothing. It doesn’t fly.”

After high school, the Milwaukee native entered the Air Force, where she received her medical assistant training. Four years later, she returned home, started a family and took a job at Froedtert Hospital in the neurology department. She worked a schedule of seven days on, seven days off, 10 hours a day, and was known as a take-charge person. “I had never been anything else except a medical assistant. I really loved my job, but MS got in the way,” Johnson says.

The diagnosis came in 1997. “My doctor, when I was diagnosed, said I wouldn’t be able to do my job anymore. Being the kind of person that I am, I said, ‘Oh yeah, just watch.’” Johnson soldiered on with the support of her fellow workers, but saw her performance slowly slip. She lost hand strength, suffered chronic fatigue and began experiencing short-term memory issues.

Although the hospital bent over backwards for her, she came to doubt her capacity to continue. “They said, ‘We can work with you.’ But I finally left. I didn’t feel competent. I felt like I was letting other people down.”

Johnson was declared legally disabled and began receiving Social Security disability income. The odds were she would never work again. She moved on to being a full-time mother to her three teenage children. It was a rough time for her physically. “Everyone graduated,” she says proudly, “but I couldn’t do everything with them. My son played football, wrestled and ran track, but I couldn't cheer him on. Both of my daughters play the violin, I couldn't see them on stage, because I was too tired. I just felt robbed by MS.”

But in 2003, with the kids out of high school,
 she began to think about what she would do with the rest of her life. She loved children, she loved books, and wondered if there was a way to combine the two. One of Johnson’s friends taught middle school. “She told me about an education program I should check out at MATC.” That led her to CUTEP – the Cooperative Urban Teacher Education Program.

CUTEP trains new K-12 teachers, with an emphasis on urban schools. Students do two years at MATC and finish at a participating four-year school: Cardinal Stritch University, Carroll College, or the Universities of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Madison, Oshkosh and Whitewater. Several other local colleges accept CUTEP credits. The popular program now has almost 400 active students. Johnson entered it thinking that she might want to teach high school English. Hunch soon changed to certainty.

“She really took to the program,” says Eva Baez, faculty coordinator. “It just seemed to reinforce some things for her.”

“Because I had been out of school since ’79, I was afraid to actually jump back in,” Johnson says. “I wasn’t sure I could learn, and I was scared to go right into the university. So, I gave MATC a try, and it’s been really wonderful. All of MATC has been good to me, not just the CUTEP program. They’re supportive and really want you to succeed. They’re concerned.”

This fall, Johnson transferred her credits to Cardinal Stritch to begin the final stretch of her undergraduate degree in secondary education. Her daughter, Raina, already was there as a nursing student. “We’re going to graduate together!” Johnson says. She has started on a hopeful new treatment regimen for her MS, undergoing chemotherapy.

As a CUTEP apprentice last spring, she taught English four afternoons a week to a sixth-grade class at Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts. Some days in the classroom were so frustrating she wanted to scream. “Other days they’re eager little learners. What I like most is that I’m helping to shape young minds. Kids today are really in trouble, and if they’re in trouble, we’re in trouble, because they are our future. Without our help, they’re lost. I can put them on the right track and help them find themselves.”

Of teachers, Johnson observes: “People say they want to teach, but you have to know for sure it’s what you want to do. It’s more than just a job, and you’re not going to be in it for the money. You have to have a passion for it.”

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